Neil collapsed into his seat at the banquet table like a puppet with its strings cut.

“Having trouble walking?” June asked, feet propped up at the head of the table.

Her arms were folded in her lap, her face a veneer of self-satisfaction. Neil couldn’t guess why—it’s not like he had anyone to blame but himself for the discomfort.

“Yeah,” Neil said, sitting limp in his chair. “If you find a will-to-live somewhere, let me know, would you? I think I might’ve lost mine.”

She shrugged. “Happens to the best of us. Hungry?”

“Dear lord, yes.”

Meals weren’t exactly served hot on the city wall, though he could get a ration of hard cheese, stale bread, and a mug of even staler beer, if he wanted.

He didn’t.

Instead, he had lunch with the rest of the ‘Heroes.’

The six… What were they, Neil wondered?

They weren't quite co-workers. Not really friends, either, but they were getting closer as the days went by. Roommates, maybe?

Jackie and Peter weren’t around yet. Wherever they were, they’d likely be together, Neil thought. Maybe still sparing, and maybe… doing something that Neil didn’t want to picture.

The food wasn't there yet, either. Argus generally arrived with a procession of meal-bearing servants twenty minutes after the one-o’clock bell and asked them about their day.

Thomas and Anne were there, however.

He said his hellos to them, and they said theirs back. There was a tension between Neil and these two that he never managed to break. It was possible, he considered, that this was due to a lack of trying.

Not being two of the most sociable people that Neil had ever met, he didn’t see them all that often. Generally only at mealtimes, at Argus’s urging.

Neil liked to keep himself busy—always moving—and they never seemed to cross his path.

He glanced at them, sitting left and across him, clustered at the shoulder of a table that could easily seat sixty people. Sitting together, but not quite sitting together.

Thomas was a tall—soft-looking-but-not-large—man. He had cropped dirty-blonde hair, the scraggly beginnings of an unkempt beard, and eyebrows ready to crawl off his face and start new lives in the circus.

Neil’s eyes drew towards them, as they always did when he hadn’t seen Thomas in a while.

They were thick eyebrows, slightly darker than the rest of his hair. They took up the majority of his forehead real estate, pulling attention with their own force of gravity, and subordinating the rest of his features with their prominence.

Thomas’s eyes?

Under his eyebrows.

His face?

Eyebrow-ish.

Personality?

Serious.

Anne, conversely, was an unassuming dollop of a woman. Older than Neil—probably the oldest of all of them, though he never asked by how much. She was in her late twenties, if he had to guess. Not old, just older.

She had light blonde hair and sad brown eyes. Her voice—a relatively rare thing to hear—was high-pitched, but had an easy, soothing cadence to it, like a mother trying to lull her baby to sleep.

“You,” said June, looking closely at Neil, pulling him from his thoughts. “Look like shit.”

‘What is with this girl?’

“Gee, thanks,” Neil raised his eyebrows at her. He didn’t think he looked that bad. “It was a hot day—swords are heavy. What do you want from me?”

She shrugged. “Just pointing it out.”

Neil squinted at her, pursed his lips, and remained otherwise silent.

…

…

“Welcome, young Heroes!” Argus’s voice boomed as he strolled into the room after they had all taken their seats.

How the old man knew when they were all gathered in the same place, Neil couldn’t tell. Argus had a skill for making entrances, and demonstrated this at every available opportunity.

Even when that opportunity was as mundane as lunch.

When Jackie and Pete arrived—together, to no one’s surprise—they took their seats as a single entity, right next to each other, a space away from Neil.

And—less than thirty seconds later—Argus was there, wearing his customary copper-colored robe, looking every bit like he’d wandered off the stage of a Greek tragedy.

“I bring terrible news!” The old man said, shuffling down the length of the hall with the vigor of a man half his age.

In his hands was a bundle of yellow papers marked in scribbles, and a scroll.

“And yet, he sounds so excited.” June mumbled from Neil’s right.

“Bad news can be pretty exciting,” Neil whispered back, shrugging. “I’m excited.”

“Hush, children!” Argus planted his papers in the dead middle of the wooden banquet table.

Neil received mild, scolding glances from every face around the table, including June. He stuck his tongue out back at her.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Behold!” The old man intoned, unfurling the scroll down the table. “Lesser undead have been spotted in the Mavith Valley, to the east.”

Neil blinked, leaning forward in his chair. The scroll—what little of it he could see, from that distance—looked like a map of the countryside. The papers remained illegible and out of reach.

“Cool,” said Thomas, who happened to be sitting closest to the pile of papers. “You mean, like, zombies?”

He reached out to grab them, and Argus carefully watched him do so.

“They are forgotten corpses, animated through raw arcane force,” the old man said, and paused. “Though I have heard other Heroes call them that, yes.”

“Zombies?” Echoed June, eyebrows raised. “We talkin’ Walking Dead, or World War Z?”

Argus looked blankly at her.

“Do they stumble around like they’re wearing cement shoes, or do they run at you like Olympic sprinters?” Neil translated.

Argus’s blank look did not dissipate, it only transferred to Neil.

“They’re asking if the zombies are slow or fast.” Pete supplied, raising a hand.

Jackie shook her head. “Are they dangerous?” She clarified.

“Not as such,” Argus frowned. “Lesser undead are merely a symptom of the evil which plagues the land. Not dangerous in small numbers, but certainly a nuisance. As steward, it is my duty to send my best men to investigate the source of this disturbance.”

“Does that mean you’re sending us?” Thomas asked, leaning ever forward, pale-blue eyes shining.

Argus blinked at him.

“No…” He said slowly, pulling the scroll away from Thomas. “I believe the source of this evil lies in the forest of Miste, which—to be frank—you would not return from alive.”

Thomas looked disappointed by this, and leaned back into his seat.

“However,” The old man started, eyes patrolling the faces around the table. “I would not be able to send the city’s militia nor guard without leaving the people vulnerable to… other threats.”

“So you're sending us to the valley.” Said Thomas, smiling as though he found this satisfying.

Neil frowned at him, then at Argus.

“If you would be willing… it would put this city greatly in your debt if you would help us in our time of need.” The old man said in a low voice, nodding deeply at Thomas.

“All of us?” Neil asked, eyebrows raised. “Like, together, all of us?”

The old man folded his hands together, hiding them in the sleeves of his copper robe.

Bright and piercing were the aged eyes. “To put it quite plainly,” Argus said, looking from face to face, setting finally on Neil with a tangible weight. “I have a need for a party of Heroes. Will you answer my call for aid?”

“Yes.” Said Thomas, immediately smiling, like he’d just won a prize.

“Yes?” Said Peter, glancing at Jackie.

Jackie nodded, with conviction and steel in her eyes.

Anne nodded with her, a slight frown tugging at the corners of her lips.

“Should be fun.” June shrugged.

More than one set of eyes rested on Neil.

“Fun,” He echoed June, still frowning. “Sure.”

“Excellent,” Argus smiled. “I will help you prepare accordingly. You will leave in three days.”

…

…

“Three days!” Neil hissed, pacing back and forth in the empty corridor.

Empty except for June, at least.

“It’s not that bad.” She said, perched on a south-facing windowsill, bathing in the glass-filtered light.

They were in the eastern wing of the castle, in a hall that connected an abandoned ballroom with the eastern thoroughfare gate. Presumably, it was used when Argus hosted parties—which Neil could hardly imagine—but was empty and coated in a thin layer of dust by the time Neil found it.

What it lacked in people it made up for with an excellent view of the city. The houses sprawled below in a white stone maze, reminding Neil that he didn’t know nearly enough about the town in which he lived. It was, all in all, a phenomenal spot to get some brooding done.

“It’s sure-as-shit not good.” Neil insisted, running his fingers back through his messy brown hair. He’d be needing it cut soon, a prospect that didn’t thrill him in an age when barbers were known for cutting more than hair.

‘Priorities.’ Neil thought, shaking his head.

“Jackie and Peter will be fine, but what about everyone else? What are you going to do when a zombie grabs you?”

“I’m not going to let them grab me,” June said, raising her chin in defiance. “And if one does, I’ll cut off their hands and feed them to it.”

She mimed doing so with her dagger, which had once again appeared in her hands.

Neil frowned at the mental image, shaking his head. “Alright, what am I going to do? Fall down in front of it and hope it trips on me?” He scowled.

June pursed her lips at him. “What about your precious training? Aren't you ready to take down the dread pirate Roberts by now?”

“The only thing I’m qualified to beat is a wooden post.” Neil said, still pacing, not looking at June.

He was starting to get pretty good at beating wooden posts though, he thought. He didn’t miss, and his practice sword didn’t feel so awkward in his hand anymore.

“There’s a joke about meat in there somewhere, but I’ll let it pass,” June said, mildly. “You’re really that worried about this?”

“We’ve been here a week,” Neil hissed again. “I’m all for doing some chores if it means I don't have to pay rent, but the living dead? Really?”

June shrugged. “Well, if you’re that worried, maybe you should talk to Argus about it.”

“I thought you didn’t trust him?”

“I thought you did.” She gave him a pointed look.

Neil scratched the back of his head, eyes focused downward, tracking the seams of the limestone tiles as his pace ate past them.

“Maybe,” He allowed. “But you aren’t worried?”

“Against zombies?” June snorted. “Please; I eat zombies for breakfast. Have you seen a horror movie? They’re weaksauce.”

She waved her hand, unbothered by thoughts of murderous corpses.

“You’ve never seen a real zombie, though,” he shook his head. “Lesser undead—whatever. They might be super fast, and strong, and… I don’t know, they vomit black ooze or something. We don’t know.”

“So go ask Argus.” June said, clearly exasperated, forcefully gesturing at him with both hands—knife included.

“Maybe I will,” Said Neil, in an identical tone, stopping to look at her. “You’re not worried at all?”

June shrugged.

“Right,” Neil said, adjusting his shoulders and straightening his shirt. “Talk to Argus. I can do that. I can do that now.”

June waved at him: a cat-like gesture which he perceived to mean, ‘begone from me then, fool.’

And begone, he went.